


(it's hard to dance) with the devil on your back

by peter_parkerson



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Crying, Depression, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hugs, Hurt Peter Parker, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker-centric, Tony Stark Has A Heart, based on my own mental issues lol, it's literally just me projecting my problems on peter oops, peter and ned are dating it's not relevant but they are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 15:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16768000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peter_parkerson/pseuds/peter_parkerson
Summary: Sometimes, Peter is okay.Sometimes, he does his homework and fights crime and hangs out with Aunt May and Mr. Stark or Ned and MJ and enjoys himself through all of it.Sometimes, he lives his life and that, in itself, is enough.Sometimes, Peter is okay.Sometimes, Peter ishappy.Other times, Peter cannot remember whatokayfeels like, much lesshappy. He sinks so low that he can no longer see light, no longer hear the dull roar of everyday life.Or, the one in which Peter finally breaks down and tells Tony about his failing mental health.





	(it's hard to dance) with the devil on your back

**Author's Note:**

> so like.......this was really cathartic to write because it was just me venting my own issues (somewhat exaggerated, creative license and all lmao), so here's this

Sometimes, Peter is okay.

Sometimes, he does his homework and fights crime and hangs out with Aunt May and Mr. Stark or Ned and MJ and enjoys himself through all of it.

Sometimes, he lives his life and that, in itself, is enough.

Sometimes, Peter is okay.

Sometimes, Peter is _happy._

But other times, Peter feels like he never truly made it out of the rubble of the building that collapsed on him. Like concrete still rests, steadfast and unrelenting, on his chest, making him choke on both oxygen and the twisted remnants of joy. Like he’s being crushed by the weight of the world, in the form of unproductivity and self-loathing.

Other times, Peter cannot remember what _okay_ feels like, much less _happy._ He sinks so low that he can no longer see light, no longer hear the dull roar of everyday life.

While Spider-Man swings on webs, Peter Parker swings between moods. While Spider-Man fights bad guys on the street, Peter Parker fights demons in his own head.

* * *

Peter floats through the day, hour by hour, minute by minute. His body is numb all the way down to his toes, his mind fuzzy around the edges, but the world continues to turn.

People walk by him. Bells ring. Teachers lecture. Lockers slam.

The world turns.

On days like these, Peter doesn’t really process anything. Colors are dull, sounds are faded. He’s vaguely aware that this is not how things should be, but he does nothing about it. There is nothing to do, no way to claw himself out of the hole he’s buried in.

Besides, it’s easier to just let it be. Let whatever is going to happen to him happen. He won’t feel it anyway, not really. He’ll remember it later, when he comes back to himself, but it will be as if it happened to someone else. As if the day is a story, a tale of someone who looks exactly like Peter Parker but lacks the spark of life.

It’s Wednesday. Peter knows this. It’s February 4th. Peter knows this too.

He’s cold, he thinks. He’s not quite sure, because he can’t quite feel his limbs, but it’s usually cold in the science classroom and he’s not good at thermoregulating.

Ned is sitting next to him. The science teacher is speaking about…something or other. His notebook page is covered in scribbled zig-zags. Peter knows all of this.

It doesn’t feel relevant. None of it does.

He can’t focus on anything other than how unaware he is, presently, which is not helping his unawareness.

Paradox. That is a paradox.

Perhaps he, himself, is a paradox.

Hm. An interesting concept.

A paradox is self-contradictory. A paradox is inconsistent. A paradox is made of conflict, of opposition, of incongruity.

A paradox is an anomaly, an enigma. As is Peter.

This seems relevant, somehow. He files this away in the back of his head, in the lockbox labelled _Thoughts from when I wasn’t real_ , for safekeeping.

* * *

He can feel his friends’ eyes on him. Their gazes make the back of his neck tingle in a way not unlike his spider-sense, which is always…dulled, when he gets like this, in the same way that the rest of his senses are. Ned and MJ have tried to talk to him, but Peter hasn’t given them much by way of conversation. By now, they’re quiet. It might be worse.

Peter stares down at his lunch, which has been picked at but mostly uneaten. It’s not so much that he’s not hungry - he’s always hungry, really, it’s just easier to ignore sometimes - but eating doesn’t feel right. It generally doesn’t on bad days.

Which is fine. Technically, he’s supposed to eat enough for someone two or three times his size and skipping meals is in the top three on the list of things he’s not supposed to do, but it’s fine.

Everyone skips meals once in a while. Just because his metabolism is higher doesn’t mean he can’t do it too.

(It sort of does.

But it’s fine.)

How much longer is it until lunch is over?

Peter’s working up to turning around to check the clock - it’s way more daunting of a task than it should be - when a hand is waved in front of his face. It takes a long moment for him to blink into focus and recognize MJ’s thin fingers hovering in his eyeline.

It takes an even longer moment for Peter to realize that both MJ, who’s sitting across from him, and Ned, who’s sitting on his right, are waiting for him to speak. He inhales deeply enough for his lungs to burn with the effort, then exhales slowly, measuredly. The fingers of his right hand twist into his sweatpants as Peter painstakingly musters up a “Hm?”

MJ squints at him. The look on her face is not quite worried, just…passively concerned, maybe. It’s still more emotion than she normally shows - a fact that Peter notes absently. It’s not her who speaks, though.

“Pete, are you feeling okay?” Ned asks, and unlike MJ, worry rolls off of him in waves. His hand comes to rest, touch feather light, on Peter’s wrist.

He gives a noncommittal hum.

Ned’s fingertips press just a little harder into Peter’s arm. “Is this - Peter, did something happen or are you just...having a Day?”

Peter can _hear_ the capitalization. It’s unsurprising how quickly his boyfriend recognizes this as one of Those Days, given how often he’s been having them lately.

It’d be scary, if he wasn’t so numb, how frequent these Days are now. He wonders if he should tell someone.

An adult, that is. Ned helps, but.

Peter really doesn’t want to speak. He doesn’t want to open his mouth and form actual words with actual meanings. That feels too...big. Wide. Much.

(He’s aware that his thoughts don’t exactly make sense right now, but that’s fine, too.)

He doesn’t want to speak, so he doesn’t. Instead, he raises his right hand, much too sluggishly, and holds up two fingers.

_Second one,_ he says wordlessly. Ned makes a small noise of…affirmation, Peter thinks. Or discontent. It’s a bit difficult to discern other people’s emotions when Peter doesn’t feel any of his own.

MJ leans forward, elbows resting on the table. Her eyes narrow further. “What exactly does “a Day” mean?”

The explanation is way too many words. Vague hand gestures are his go-to, but those won’t suffice either, so he just...ignores her. Drops his head onto the table and does his best to tune out Ned’s voice.

(He catches the words _numb_ and _autopilot,_ and yeah, that sounds about right.)

* * *

The day passes with Peter wandering from class to class in a complete daze, only getting where he’s supposed to be on sheer muscle memory, until he walks out of the school with Ned once again at his side and his boyfriend stops halfway down the steps.

“Pete,” Ned says, “is it a lab day?”

Shit.

Shit, is it?

Peter follows Ned’s gaze to the school parking lot, exhales tiredly at the sight of his mentor’s black Audi. Wednesday. Wednesday’s not normally a lab day, is it?

“Make up day,” he says, voice almost a whisper, only because Ned is staring at him and gestures don’t work here. He rubs the back of his neck with one hand, curling his shoulders and shrinking in on himself. “I - I missed last Friday, so Mr. Stark insisted I come in today.”

He doesn’t want to. He really, really doesn’t want to. He wants to go home and lie down and sleep off the punch-drunk haze, not go to the lab and try to pretend that he feels fully conscious.

This seems like a warning sign.

Is it really a warning sign if you’re already off the deep end, though?

Ned’s fingers find their place on Peter’s skin again, encircling his wrist and resting against his pulse point. “Do you want me to come with you? I’m sure Mr. Stark won’t mind.”

Tempting, but then he’d have to explain why he let Ned tag along with no warning and he doesn’t have the energy to lie about why he’s here.

Ned must sense his hesitation. “At least let me walk you, love.”

A wisp of gratitude bubbles up in the pit of Peter’s stomach before the unrelenting desensitization stamps it back down.

He nods.

Ned tugs him along, gently, by the wrist, throwing glances back at him every so often as if to make sure he’s still there. They trudge slowly across the school lawn, Peter eternally grateful that he doesn’t have to consciously think about walking. Just has to put one foot in front of the other and let Ned do the rest.

They reach the car way too quickly.

Tony Stark leans out the window, weight on one elbow, and smirks at the two of them. “Hey, boys. How’s it going, Ned?”

“Alright, Mr. Stark. You?”

“Great.” Tony’s gaze settled on Peter and his eyebrows crease. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, thinly veiled concern painted across his face. “Underoos -”

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter sees Ned wave his hand in a slicing motion at neck level and shake his head frantically, the universal sign for _abort abort abort._

There’s a pause as Mr. Stark reconfigures his sentence, then, “C’mon, Pete, sit up front. It’s Happy’s day off so I’m driving.”

Peter doesn’t move.

A squeeze of his wrist and a pointed, faux-cheerful, “See you tomorrow, Peter!”

He forces his feet to move, tossing Ned the closest thing to a smile he can muster, and drags himself around the car. Pulls open the door and slides reluctantly into the passenger seat, dropping his backpack at his feet.

“Hi,” Peter murmurs, because he’s supposed to.

“Hey, kid.” Mr. Stark’s still staring at him. Peter knows why - he’s quiet. Peter’s not normally quiet and Mr. Stark knows this, so it’s odd for him not to be talking Tony’s ear off by now.

Days like this make talking a chore, one that requires too much effort to be done often.

Peter angles himself away from Tony, rests his head on the car window, and doesn’t turn as the car pulls out of the parking lot.

He hopes Tony will get the message.

* * *

The strategy works for the most part. Tony makes a couple attempts to get him to talk, extending olive branches in the form of conversation starters that Peter makes no move to grasp.

The drive to the compound is an uncomfortable 45 minutes. Peter closes his eyes for most of the ride, but never falls asleep.

He doesn’t even realize they’ve arrived until Tony shakes his shoulder and says, “Up and at ‘em, Sleeping Beauty.”

Peter feels like he hasn’t slept in three days, but Tony can believe whatever he wants.

He slips gracelessly out of the car (the concrete is solid under him in a way that the car seat wasn’t and he hates it so much, wishes so badly not to have to carry his own weight on his own two feet anymore) and rolls his shoulders. There’s a series of pops that Peter barely notices but makes Tony wince.

Tony places a hand at the small of Peter’s back, guides him out of the garage and into the compound. Peter tugs at the hair at the base of his skull as they walk, then switches to scratching lightly at the inside of his forearm halfway through.

He’s thankful that Tony notices, _he notices,_ but lets him carry on, just this once.

He doesn’t realize that they’re not heading toward the lab until they’re steps away from the living room - Peter tenses, hesitates at the doorway, and Tony just presses on.

_This isn’t the lab,_ he wants to say. _What are we doing?_ he wants to ask.

The words are like stones in the ocean of his throat, sinking and sinking because they’re too heavy to float.

“I think we’re gonna take a break from the lab today,” Tony says brightly, hand still a firm, grounding line on Peter’s back. “You seem like you could use a break. You wanna pick a movie?”

Peter just…blinks at him. He doesn’t understand.

He’s sitting on a couch. He doesn’t know when he sat down.

“Peter?” Tony’s voice lilts. Why does he sound so worried, what is he even worried about? “Movie and ice cream, Petey? Sound good?”

What is he sitting on?

“Peter?”

Where is he?

“Peter.”

Whose voice is that?

“ _Peter._ ”

Who is he?

Shit. He’s doing it again.

Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Reset. Floating is bad, floating is unhealthy, floating isn’t going to solve anything.

Don’t float.

Find yourself. Find your body through the haze, reconnect, _come back._

_What are you sitting on?_

A couch. A soft leather couch.

_Where are you?_

The compound. Stark Tower. The living room of Stark Tower.

_Whose voice is that?_

...Tony’s. Tony is speaking, rather frantically, though the words are lost in the air. Tony is trying to...calm him down? Yes.

_Who are you?_

Peter Parker. Spider-Man. 16 years old, son of Richard and Mary Parker. Nephew of May and Ben Parker. Best friend of Ned Leeds and Michelle Jones. Mentee of Tony Stark.

Peter slams back into reality with the force of a speeding train.

The first thing he processes is Tony’s voice, panicked and sharp from the floor in front of him, and the second is the lack of air in his lungs.

He sucks in a breath so sharp it hurts, hears Tony go silent, exhales in one long puff. Repeats, wringing his hands in an attempt to ease the anxiety burning low in his chest.

“I’m okay,” he says - wheezes, more like - aloud. “I’m okay, Mr. Stark.”

Tony’s face swims in and out of view, and his hands hover hesitantly in the space between Tony and Peter. His voice is ragged when he says, “That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard, Peter.”

Peter wraps his arms around his torso and tilts forward, head resting on his knees. He doesn’t respond.

“I mean, I think you just had a panic attack and a dissociative episode at the same time? But you expect me to think you’re all good?”

He thinks he might be slipping again.

“I was gonna wait and see if you talked to me on your own or - or if you’d just had a bad day and would perk up with one of your dumb Disney movies and junk food and - _Peter_.”

He flinches - this whole thing, this swinging in and out of reality thing? Not fun.

“Hey, stay with me, Pete, just breathe for a minute.”

He complies, dragging in breath after breath, letting his lungs fill and deflate in a slow, steady rhythm. It feels like the world is tilting back and forth, rocking on its axis, but he’s breathing and he’s alive and he’s _here._

“That’s it, kiddo, you’re doing great,” Tony murmurs. Apparently makes a decision about where his hands are going, because they land on Peter’s knees, calloused thumbs rubbing circles on his jeans. “You’re okay, just take it easy.”

Doesn’t he understand? It’s never easy.

Still, he does as told - it’s easier to follow directions than to think for himself right now.

“You with me, Pete?”

Peter looks up.

The walls are a soft blue. The curtains on the windows are closed. Tony’s suit jacket is a velvety gray, soft under Peter’s fingers.

He says, “I’m with you.”

Tony visible relaxes, shoulders dropping and body untensing. His eyes close for just a moment as a relieved sigh passes his lips, then open again to meet Peter’s. Unwavering. Inescapable.

He’s not getting out of this without explaining. That much is clear.

It’s not that he expected to, really - Tony never lets him walk away without telling him what’s going on, never lets him pretend everything’s okay when it’s not (Peter has a theory that it’s because Tony has done this exact thing so often and doesn’t want Peter to pick up his bad habits. Joke’s on him, though, since it’s been a habit of Peter’s since way before he met Tony).

He’d hoped that maybe they could watch the movie first though. Give him some time to figure out how to water down the whole situation.

He can’t tell Tony how bad it is.

He _can’t._

He can’t let Tony think he’s…weak. Childish. _Pathetic._

Just...he’ll give him the basics, but not the details. Not the really bad parts.

It’s still a struggle to speak, but he’ll manage. He has to.

“I have days like this sometimes,” Peter admits, curling his fingers into the cuff of Tony’s suit jacket, hoping and praying that his hands don’t visibly shake (even in his unawareness, he’s always hyper aware of his hands, for fear of betraying his pain, and of others’, for fear of people feeling just how cold he is). “Days where - where I just don’t really…feel anything. It’s like my brain doesn’t work and I just - I feel numb.”

Tony normally doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, but now his emotions are painted all over his face. Confusion. Pain. Fear.

Sadness. Anger.

Compassion.

Understanding.

  
It doesn’t help. Looking at Tony, watching his reaction unfold in real time, it doesn’t help. Makes it worse, actually. Makes Peter want to both never open his mouth again and word-vomit his entire life story.

_Stick to the original plan, dammit,_ Peter chastises himself. _Basics, no details._

“S’like everything happens, y’know, the whole world keeps moving, but I don’t really process any of it.”

Peter trains his eyes on a spot just above Tony’s left shoulder.

“It’s no big deal. Really, I - I’m okay. This whole… _thing_ -” he gives a vague wave of his hand, lying straight through his teeth “- is no big deal.”

Tony scoffs. “And that’s why you’re sitting on my couch with your hands shaking like leaves, looking like you haven’t seen a bed or a meal in weeks. Wait, have you eaten?”

Peter stares at him.

“That’s a no. God, Pete, you’re gonna give me a heart attack one of these days,” Tony huffs. But he doesn’t get up; his eyes search Peter’s face for a long moment before he seems to come to a decision, to find whatever it is he’s looking for. “We can, uh - we can worry about that later, though.”

Peter nods absently, jerkily.

“For now, just…stop sugarcoating.” He finally lifts his hands off of Peter - Peter would never admit to the low whine that tumbles out of him, nor is he proud of how quickly he grabs at Tony’s lapel when his sleeve slips from Peter’s grasp. “Whoa, calm down, I’m just moving so I can sit next to you, alright?”

He does exactly that, pushing himself up from the floor, sitting carefully on the left of Peter, who immediately clutches at Tony’s sleeve again, and replacing one hand on his knee. Softly, he says, “Look, I know it’s hard, Peter, but you - you gotta let me in. You gotta let me help you, and I can’t do that if I don’t know how bad it is.”

A feather in the couch cushion behind Peter tickles his upper arm and he feels it. He really, actually feels it, in the present, like he’s supposed to.

Hm.

Coming down from dissociative episodes tends to send people into sensory overload. But obviously that wasn’t enough to counter his complete and utter desensitization, so they both just…cancelled each other out.

Interesting.

(Paradox.)

“I’m sorry,” Peter says, still staring steadfast at the wall.

Tony makes an exasperated noise in the back of his throat. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“I haven’t even -”

“Nope, doesn’t matter.”

“But -”

“Peter, I swear to you, there is nothing that could be happening right now that you would need to apologize for. Whatever you think you have to be sorry for, you’re forgiven, okay?”

He’s shaking. A full-body tremor racks through him, making his shoulder bump incessantly into Tony’s. “I don’t - it’s -”

And he really was going to stick to the plan. He really was going to ignore Tony and sugarcoat and pretend that everything is fine, that _he_ is fine, but then…

But then he makes the mistake of turning his head to look up at Tony, sees the worry, the uneasiness, the - the _warmth_ in his face, and he can’t.

(He can’t do this anymore, he can’t hang on all alone.)

“Mr. Stark, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he blurts all at once, and suddenly he’s crying, loud, ugly sobs that send him pitching into Tony’s shoulder. “Mr. Stark, I’m - I’m not _okay.”_

Tony pulls him in closer, wrapping his arms tightly around Peter and sliding his fingers into his hair. His other hand runs up and down Peter’s back. “Hey, breathe. Inhale, exhale, okay? I’ve got you, kid.”

There’s a long moment where Peter just cries. Full-on weeps into Tony’s shirt because holy _shit,_ it hurts. Everything is wrong and everything is dark and it _hurts._

He’s been in pain for so long that he’s learned to ignore it, to work through it, _around_ it. And now, he’s finally letting the pain wash over him in full force, and it’s like he’s been carrying the sky on his shoulders and it’s finally come crashing down on him.

“Half the t-time, I feel numb, and the - the other half, I just f-feel _sad_ ,” he babbles, sniffling loudly. “It’s - even when I’m _happy,_ I’m s-still _sad_. There’s still this - this - this underlying sadness, even when everything is okay and I’m having fun and there’s nothing to be upset about!

“Nothing feels r-real anymore, nothing feels - feels _important_ anymore. I mean, I, I, I think about things, things I kn-know are important, and it just doesn’t register, the fact that they’re important. In general or to me, p-personally. Nothing makes me feel good anymore, _really_ good, like I used to, like I should, like - like I want to. I just walk around in this haze, just - just going through the motions of everything that I have to do, like I’m running on autopilot all the time, and - and even when I’m with Aunt May or Ned or you, it s-still feels like I’m not quite there.

“Tony, it _hurts,_ ” Peter sobs, and even to his ears, he sounds wrecked.

Broken.

“Oh, _Peter,_ ” Tony murmurs, quiet and caring and strained. “I’m so sorry, kiddie.”

_It’s okay,_ he wants to be able to say.

It’s not.

He sees that now.

“I can’t - Tony, I just -” Peter hiccups, his words twisting around each other. He stops, gasping for air between sobs, focuses on the patterns that his mentor’s fingertips trace into his back.

(He thinks he feels Tony trace the word _son,_ but files that away for a later date.)

“ _I don’t want to feel like this anymore,_ ” he finally gets out, and well.

The tears have pooled so much that Peter can feel how soaked Tony’s jacket is even past the wetness on his own cheeks. It’s almost funny, thinking about the fact that here he is, sitting in Stark Tower in sweatpants and a hoodie and soiling Tony Stark’s expensive suit jacket. Hilarious, aside from the part where he’s a complete and utter mess, and Tony is the only thing holding him together at the moment.

Tony’s arms tighten around him - Peter’s practically in his lap by now, face hidden in the crook of his neck - and if Peter didn’t know any better, he’d think he feels tears dripping on his hair (there’s definitely tears, but he’ll pretend for Tony’s sake).

Chin resting on the top of Peter’s head, Tony says, “I - I’m not a therapist or anything, buddy, but I - you -”

Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.

“Peter, I think you might have depression.”

Of course he says it.

See, it’s not like Peter doesn’t know this. It’s not like he doesn’t know that this is not only possible, but very likely. It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it and researched it and taken every online test he could find.

He hasn’t been in denial this whole time or anything. Really, he hasn’t. It’s not denial when you fully expect something to be true and just…ignore it.

That’s less _denial_ and more…non-acceptance.

Different.

As it turns out, that whole idea of ‘if you ignore it, it’ll go away’ thing? Doesn’t work. Not for this, at least.

He could ignore it before, when no one had said it out loud. He’d been so _careful_ not to say it out loud, not to actually speak the words _I think I’m depressed_ because if he says it, then it’s real.

He wanted so badly for it not to be real.

But here he is, with someone else saying it for him, because someone else was always going to have to say it for him. The ball would never start rolling if he was left to push it himself.

(Newton’s First Law: an object in motion will stay in motion until an unbalanced force is exerted on it.)

He doesn’t have to make the ball keep rolling. He just has to…not be the thing that causes it to stop.

And so he says the words he’s had buried in his chest for as long as he can remember.

“I need help.”

And Tony sighs and says, “Then we’ll get you help. We’ll get you the best therapist money can buy, someone in the superhero world in case you need to talk about Spider-Man stuff, and we’ll work on it, Petey.”

_We._

“And you -” Peter pulls back, finally, from Tony to look at him dead-on. He feels terrible, scratchy and stuffy and worn-out, but, well, he’s not totally broken his _ignore it_ habit yet. “You’ll be there? All the way?”

“Of course,” Tony says, no hesitation. There’s a fierce determination in his eyes, something Peter is both eager to and wary of classifying as _parental instinct_ , that leaves no room for Peter to doubt him. Not that he ever would. “Me and your aunt and your boyfriend and your friend MJ, we’ll all be here for you. Whatever happens, we’ll be right here.”

“Okay.”

And for the first time in what feels like forever, Peter thinks it might be.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos, comments appreciated!!
> 
> hmu on [tumblr](https://peter-parkerson.tumblr.com/)


End file.
